hi! I’M totatilly new in glow forge worldbut definitelywe deserve better I mean after buying a expenxsive machine like this one and don’t get me wrong we can do a lit of things on it but come on do we have to pay $50 dollars a month for just having some texts, flip the design and simple things Iike we have for exampleon Cricut we pay $10 at month and we can put text and can we do anything whit that tex so simple right I mean come on is not that crazy? well it is . sorry not sorry but is just crazy that we have to pay $50 per month so we can put some text or flip some design
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Hey, welcome to the forum, sorry it’s not under better circumstances.
A couple of things come to mind after reading your post:
- You’re not alone. Lots of people have expressed some doubt about the value of the premium design features. luckily it’s optional, unluckily it can be really handy when you need it. Your fellow owners here definitely hear you, and more than a few are nodding at their screen as we speak.
- Unfortunately, Glowforge staff doesn’t read the forum. They’re who needs to hear this from you! I’d say email support@glowforge.com with your concerns. If enough of us make some noise they may change things.
Other than that, I hope you find some use for the forum! Lots of us have put a great deal of effort into the content here, I’m sure you can find all kinds of design ideas and helpful hints. Since you’re new you might like this post, it’s full of useful links:
As for me, I hope you stick around and post pics of the things you make – I love to see new creativity here! Wish I could help more with the cost thing, but I will say that everything itdoes is also possible to do for free in a SVG editor called Inkscape. I use it for all my projects big and small. if you give it a shot and find that it’s hard to get started, feel free to ask here on the forum, so many of us use it that someone will be able to help almost with almost any question.
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Welcome to the community! Yes, $50/mo is pricey, but there are discounts offered on a regular basis. Because I already have a subscription, I can’t see if this is still current or not, but try it out and see if it works: February 2023 Update
On the Dashboard page where you access designs, look at the upper RH corner and click the New link to see what new offerings there are.
I wish you all success. Hang in there and keep us posted, we want you to succeed.
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Welcome to the community - it does so much for such a low-cost 40W laser cutter and, with the deals that @kelley1 mentioned, I find Premium to be worth it . Oddly enough I almost never use any of the features you mention. I use it primarily for all the free designs 
The once-a-month ones are always so incredible, and the daily ones I’ve frequently found handy!
If you really want to stop Premium, it doesn’t lessen your enjoyment of the machine at all. Get yourself a copy of Inkscape.org, and GetPaint.net (or different vector/raster editors of your choice) and have at!
If you haven’t yet, I 100% recommend going through the First Prints section, it’ll teach you a bunch of neat tips and tricks - plus you’ll learn the vocabulary that’s thrown around on here There’s also a huge tips and tricks section right here on the forum which is indispensable!
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Welcome to the forum.
You have found your way to one of the best resources for Glowforge Owners. This forum has been active for nearly 8 years, so take the time to read some of the threads and take a look at the great projects people have shared.
You will get full benefit from your Glowforge without paying for the Premium. Some people find the free files, the ability to store all of their designs indefinitely, and produce past prints very valuable. The clip art, text features and design tools also come in handy for many users. If the premium features don’t have value for you, you simply ignore the offer. Comparing the Glowforge and the Cricut is sort of making an apples/oranges comparison.
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You don’t need to pay a thing. Some of the best vector design tools are free.
I have no use for premium. I wouldn’t use it if it was free. I use Inkscape.
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You don’t. Learn to use Inkscape (free) and you won’t be dependent on the Premium tools. You’ll miss out on all the free designs in the Catalog, but you’ll keep your costs down.
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Welcome to the community. I love premium but I also have Inkscape and use it frequently to do the things you’ve listed. It’s really user friendly and I would encourage you to give it a try. Hope to see some of the fabulous things you create!
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You are right, $50 a month is a bit much but as others have pointed out, it is totally optional so if everything it does is not worth it to you just don’t.
One thing you left out that probably is a big justifier to 
for charging this much is that a very large number of files from the catalog are free to premium users.
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I also welcome you to the forum! And as all the others have said, yes, Premium is pricy, but I love all the free files I get from it, and unless you buy the designs (which is an option), as long as you have Premium you can print them as often as you like. However, unless you buy the designs, you won’t have access to them if you stop Premium. At least that’s my understanding. I’ve kept it for my two years with Glowforge so far, and I use the designs quite often. I also do have Inkscape, but I also have Silhouette Business (a one-time $59 fee, at least when I got it two years ago), which is easy to use and where I do most of my stuff, especially since I can use whatever fonts I have on my computer. Silhouette also has a free program, but you can’t do as much with it. Between Silhouette Business, Premium, and Inkscape, I have been able to do whatever I need. And as @evansd2 said, you can get help with almost any problem you have. The people in this forum are absolutely the best. And please do share what you make. We love to see and get inspired by everyone’s ideas.
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As others have noted, it can be pricey or not depending on what you do with it. If you have a market to sell finished pieces you can save hundreds of dollars with “free” files that can fill out your display. You also have Magic Canvas to create all kinds of new designs.
After using Magic Canvas a few hundred tries (not that long to do) I can get close to what I am looking for. I then use Gimp and Inkscape to clean up and modify those files to get what I am thinking about in the first place. Between those two things it pays the premium cost easily, without considering the other things.
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Welcome @preciosita101482. If you have experience in any other vector software like affinity designer or Adobe Illustrator you can also go that route.
I do all my designs in Adobe Illustrator in a legacy version that I learned and purchased eons ago (not the current subscription model) because it is enough for what I do.
However downloading pre-made designs from the catalog is also very handy on a pinch. For a different design experience you can also try Cuttle.xyz.
What most of us are trying to convey to you is that the Premium subscription is not necessary but a welcome extra if you have use for it´s features.
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I would use the premium features if I had them. Especially the text. But this is not a money making venture for me yet so that puts it just out of something sane I can add to my monthly subscriptions. I concur with the recommendations for inkscape. It’s not perfect, and there is a definite learning curve, but it’s worth it to take some time and figure that out. It can do all the text and other stuff that you need to be able to do most of what you want. If you already have other vector software that you use then that can do it too. So a few more steps to get it all into the glow forge, but nothing in premium it can’t do. Unless you’re interested in the models and such, which are just not enough value added for me to jusity it.
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Agreed, and Inkscape (or any other standalone vector editor) does a lot more than the premium design tools. Learning a vector editor will open up so many more possibilities – definitely worth the effort.
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Many of of us when we started with our GF did not even have the option of the Premium subscription and did just fine. Personally I use Adobe Illustrator, and occasionally Silhouette Business which are much more robust than the design features of Premium. However, I do like to use the files from Premium occasionally but that is totally optional.
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OH MY GOSH!!! I so absolutley agree with feeling that adding text and shapes would seem to be part of the software on the Glowforge investment! I use adobe suite, so I’ve got that to make text and shapes, but I realize I do say…SERIOUSLY??..after I go into .ai to draw a picture of a rectangle so I can cut a rectangle on the glowforge (without paying $50 a month). Ditto for text.
If you’re buying patterns on Premium, I totally get you pay a fee for that, and I know you have to draw the line somewhere…pun not intended at first, but now, heck ya…for text and a box? hmmm
Thanks @evansd2 for mentioning support@glowforge.com to write in about this so they’ll see the team will see the feedback. Will do!
Happy Wednesday all!
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not poo pooing the issue, but wanted to point out, if you don’t know it, you can literally copy/paste from illustrator into the GFUI. i don’t mind drawing shapes or text in AI first because i have more control and copy/paste only takes an extra couple of seconds.
now, if i had to export a file and import it into the GFUI every time, it would drive me nuts.
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Long, long ago when many of us got our Glowforge, there were no tools in the interface. We made files for simple things and shared them. Here is the shapes template. Keep it in your Dashboard for quick access. Cut Shapes Template
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THANKS! I did NOT know that. That will definitely help out the nut driver (me)!!! hahaha! Super helpful tip.
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